fetch a health insurance policy? one last pair of questions. did he know mitt romney just said we don't let people die in their apartments, we take them to the emergency room, that that is his health care plan? did the president know that romney had said people who didn't have continuing coverage shouldn't get covered for pre-existing conditions, that it was simply their fault for not having paid up all those years? the whole thing, the whole thing last night could have gone a whole different way. and that's hardball for now. thanks for being with us. politics nation with al sharpton starts right now. thanks, chris. and thanks to you for tuning in. tonight's lead. the real mitt romney. there's been a lot of talk about last night's debate. who won, who lost. but the real debate last night was between mitt romney and mitt romney. and being so contradictory, mr. romney opened a huge line of attack for the president. not just for 90 minutes, but for

the 33 days until this election. and today in a blistering speech, the president took full advantage of the opportunity that romney's dishonest performance invited. >> when i got on to the stage, i met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be mitt romney. but it couldn't have been mitt romney. because the real mitt romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy, the fellow on stage last night said he didn't know anything about that. the real mitt romney said we don't need any more teachers in our classrooms.

but don't boo, vote. but the fellow on stage last night, he loves teachers. can't get enough of them. the mitt romney we all know invested in companies that were called pioneers of outsourcing jobs to other countries. but the guy on stage last night, he said that he doesn't even know that there are such laws that encourage outsourcing. he's never heard of them. never heard of them never heard of tax breaks company for companies that ship jobs overseas. he said if it's true, he must need a new accountant. now, we know for sure it was not the real mitt romney because he seems to be doing just fine with

his current accountant. so you see, the man on stage last night, he does not want to be held accountable for the real mitt romney's decisions and what he's been saying for the last year. and that's because he knows full well that we don't want what he's been selling for the last year. >> here's the point. mitt romney knows americans didn't want what is an unfair plans and that's why a decoy mitt showed up last night. but here's the thing. we're not going to let him get away with it and neither should you. head over to our facebook page where we're showing the details of the romney hypocrisy on issue after issue. he can't hide his true record. he can't attack health coverage and then get away with saying

things like this. >> number one, pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan. number two, young people are able to stay on their family plan. >> oh, really? is that so? well, here's what the real romney says on the campaign trail. >> i will repeal obamacare and i'll stop this its tracks on day one. i will act to repeal obamacare. i will repeal obamacare. >> of course i'm going to appeal obamacare. i've said that on the campaign trail i think every single day. obamacare must be repealed in its entirety. >> he'd repeal it in its entirety. he'd scrap the whole thing. forget about pre-existing conditions. forget about kids on their parents' plan. last night, this new romney also smiled into the camera and said he just loves regulations. >> regulation is essential. you can't have a free market

work if you don't have regulation. as a business person, i had to have -- i needed to know the regular places. i needed them there. you couldn't have people opening up banks in their garage and making loans. you have to have regulations so that you can have an economy work. every free economy has good relati regulation. >> every good economy has good regulation. great point. why don't you tell to this guy. >> if i'm the president of the united states, we're going to rein back the regulations. we're not going to expand regulation. >> burdensome regulations serve only to restrict freedom and imperil enterprise. >> you see, last night as i watched the debate, many people that i work with, many people that i know in and around the country, were worried about whether the president was on his game. i was being ensuggested when someone can tell me something for 18 months and then tell me in one night the complete

opposite, and i'm not going to get offended, when someone can tell me they're going to deregulate and then come back and tell me they're going to regulate, someone's going to tell me they'll take health care, they don't care about people with pre-existing conditions and then change it, when someone stands up and said i want state's rights on health care and everything else, women, minorities and others will hear health care and other things under states' rights and knowing we suffered under states' rights, no, others can talk about whether the president was on his game or not and maybe he wasn't. but i want to know what game we're going to play in 33 days if this man is allowed to continue. joining me now, bob shrum, democratic strategist, senior adviser to the kerry and gore campaigns who also ran ted kennedy's campaign against romney in 1994. he's writing in the daily beast oig today saying romney won the

debate, but it was no game changer. and jared bernstein, msnbc contributor and former chief economist for vice president joe biden. bb, let me start with you. what are your thoughts? >> first of all, romney won a victory that was a victory of performance art built on a whole set of lies. i think people have counted up to 28 to 30 lies. and i actually think the president deserves some credit for at a couple of critical points holding romney accountable. it's a big victory to get romney to own voucher care as a replacement for medicare and the president also took romney on when he said no one over 65 will be affected because of the rebeautiful obamacare in fact as the president pointed out, seniorses will pay $600 more for prescription drugs and the medicare trust if you said will expire eight years sooner. secondly the president talked straight to 50 and 55-year-olds and said do you really want to replace medded care with voucher

care? romney is now lashed to the idea. >> he definitely did. jared, let me go into the facts about the $5 trillion tax plan that romney all of a sudden got amnesia about last night. the facts of the plan is it was deemed, quote, not mathematically possible. it would raise taxes on 95% of americans, all while giving the top 0.1% a $250,000 tax cut. these are the facts. you're the economist. how does he have it both ways? >> well, it's pretty hard to misplace 5 trillion bucks like that, but that's kind of what happened. i thought bob's points were exactly the right place to go with this. let's look at the facts of the case. if you're going to cut taxes 20% across the board, you're going it blow a $5 trillion hole over

ten years in the government's revenue. now, what governor romney says is i can make that up by closing tax expenditures and loopholes, but there's two problems with that. one, the arithmetic. if you you just look at people over $200,000, if you just look at the wealthiest couple of percent, the revenue cuts about $250 billion and the deductions, the broadening of the base gets you back about 160. so you're short about 90 billion. there's the math right there. and i heard absolutely nothing last night in a makes those numbers magically work out. in fact one of the things that governor romney said last night, he said, quote, i will not reduce the taxes paid by high income americans. now, this is a guy going around talking about the extent of his tax cuts. he said i will not reduce the taxes paid. a lot of people are scratching their heads.

>> and they'll keep scratching. let me tell you something very interesting, bob. there was another candidate for president who also argued his tax cuts wouldn't benefit the rich. he said it during a presidential debate on the exact same date, october 3rd, in 2000. a debate that also was moderated by jim lehrer. >> the fact is the wealthiest may more taxes. if you're a family of four making $50,000 ins massachusetts, you get a 50% tax cut. >> now, here's mr. george bush same day, 2000. same moderator making the same promise. it didn't work then. why would we believe the same day, same party, same kind of

political philosophy now? >> we won't believe it because we've lived through it and we found out that it was a fraud. look, what the average middle class family got out of the bush tax cut was equivalent to enough money to buy an extra diet coke a day. who is going to believe mitt romney when he gets up there and said, look, i'm going to take care of the mid class, no tax increases on the middle class, no tax cuts for the wealthy. he's mr. 47%. he's spent the whole year deriding the majority of american hes and catering to people at the very top. i think jared's absolutely right. these numbers not only don't add up, but if romney is ever forced to specify any of these deductions, what about home interest mortgage, what about state and local taxes? i mean, that would be a massive body blow to the middle class families of this country. >> let me say i'm very glad you played that clip from president bush for the following reason. we talk about something where i

work at the center on budget called the tax reform trap. and here's how it goes. a candidate says i'm going to lower the tax rates but i'm going to broaden the tax base. what you get is lower rates, you get a lot of the former, you get very little of the latter. because like bob says, once you start going into how you're going to broaden the base, then it's don't look at me, look at the other guy. so the danger of this tax reform trap that governor romney is trying to sell right now is that you're going to end up with massively lower tax rates and you're not going to broaden the base much at all such that you'll have an explosive budget deficit, it's very much what we saw in the bush supply side trickle down years. >> bob, debatess left. the vice presidential debate, the town hall presidential debate and then the debate on

foreign policy. >> i think we throw out the myth that somehow or other only the first debates matter. i think the other debates will have big audiences. i'm through with the expectations game. i think vice president biden will do very well next week. i think the president will bring his best game to these next two debates. this guy is a fourth quarter player. we saw it on health care and in the 2008 primaries. when the going to gets tough, when the pressure is on, he really steps up to it. i think barack obama whether do very well in these next two debates and i think as voters think about this,do very well in these next two debates and i think as voters think about this, we all play it as a game. if you were an average person sitting at home last night, you said, wait a minute, i suspect that guy romney's going to increase my taxes. wait a minute, i'm a senior. it will cost me $600 more for prescription drugs. i think those are the things that are important to voters and that's why i think the president's performance last night is a little underrated. >> that's what i felt immediately last night. i can say a lot of people say

romney won. some say the president won. there's no doubt in my mind who took a whooping last night, the truth. bob, jared, thanks for your time this evening. >> thanks. you were great last night. >> thank you. coming up, foul play. what the heck did big bird ever do to mitt romney? it was one of the real bird brain moments from the debate. and the president's calling him out on it. >> we didn't know that big bird was driving the federal deficit. but that's what we heard last night. how about that. elmo, too? >> plus fighting for the middle class. will romney's smoke and mirrors on stage matter to folks in key states and a key state like ohio? we'll talk about it with ohio's

democratic senator sherrod brown. plus, one of romney's top surrogates makes some outrageous and offensive comments about the president. >> he has been what i zi and disengaged. when you're not that bright, you can't get better prepared. >> lazy? not that bright? time for romney's campaign to show some respect and kick this by by to the curb. questions?

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today's conversation on facebook has been going nonstop since last night's debate.

everyone's riled up about romney's attack on big bird and the gang at sesame street. ramon says don't mess with big bird. denetra says i fwru up on sesame street and i want my children to enjoy it, too. elizabeth says one thing for sure, firing big bird is not going to put a dent in the deficit. she's right. and we'll show you why later in the show. but first, where rk, we want t you think. head to facebook and like us to join the conversation that keeps going long after the show ends. [ male announcer ] what if you had thermal night-vision goggles,

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it may have seemed like mitt romney had a strong 90 minute debate last night, but i've got nine reasons why his campaign is still in deep trouble. it's the nine battle ground states. and he's hurting there. down everywhere except north carolina. president obama has a 19 point lead among ohio voters when it comes to looking out for the middle class. he has a 23 point lead on understanding the economic problems that people are facing. and the president has a 19 point lead on who is more trusted to handle medicare. these are facts. and no amount of deception on the debate stage will change that. joining me now is democratic senator sherrod brown of ohio. our latest nbc poll shows senator brown with a nine point

lead over his republican challenger. senator, thanks for coming on the show tonight. >> good to be back reverend sharp ton, thank you very much. >> do voters in ohio care more about performance or policy? >> they care about policy.ton, . >> do voters in ohio care more about performance or policy? >> they care about policy. you start with the auto rescue. president obama knows that 800,000 jobs in ohio are connected to the auto industry directly or indirectly. tens of thousands probably hundreds of those were in jeopardy when he took office in 2009. now we see the auto industry coming back and you can whether my opponent or mitt romney, they were on the wrong side of the auto rescue and nothing builds the middle class in ohio better than a vie brant auto industry. and i wish they had debated it last night. i wish people could have seen the stark difference between their way of kind of tax cuts for the rich trickle down, although romney denied that, but versus starting with the middle

qulags a qul class and growing out. that's why we're coming back in ohio. >> in ohio, the auto industry is very important there. and mr. romney said let detroit go bankrupt and mr. romney and your opponent were not for the bailout. as you move around the state in your race, what are you hearing from people around these kinds of issues, senator? >> i'm hearing how important the auto rescue was and is. i was at columbus castings today, one of the oldest company, 110-year-old company on parsons avenue in columbus, they care about china and enforcing trade rules and standing up on currency. we did a discussion with a bunch of workers and with leaders and management in the company both about how important my bill is, largest bipartisan jobs bill that passed the senate. speaker boehner won't move on it. we're asking people to organize at sherrod brown.com, sign up to make sure that we can level the

playing field with china. that's clearly what obama is doing on enforcing trade rules. it's important we're aggressive there. we do that, american companies can do just fine competing enter that goesly. that's all we ask is a level playing field. i want a president that will stand with me on that with ohio workers, with ohio companies. you can see that throughout the midwest. that's one reason i think the president is doing pretty well in this state. >> now, the president is doing well in ohio. you heard the president last night with mr. romney. mr. romney being a different mr. romney than we've seen him for the last 18 months or the last section years. do you think even with the new hit romney that showed up last night when he starts talking about states' rights, when he starts talking about regulation or deregulation, when he starts saying he doesn't advocate $5

trillion tax cut when in fact the numbers prove that he does and has been advocating that, will that resonate with independent voters and/or undecided voters in your state of ohio? >> i don't think so. i think people realize that governor romney is still wrong on medicare and still wrong on trade and still wrong on jobs and still wrong on the middle class. i think that's increasingly clear. again it goes back to which path do you go. do you want to go back to the trickle down economics you give tax cuts to the rich and hope it helps the middle class or do you focus on the middle class and that's trait enforcement, it's i don't think training at community colleges like columbus state and sinclair. it's working on auto trade, all of those issues that really do help a vibrant middle class grow. and the economy grows out from there. and i think that's the fork in the road in this election. whether it's a senate race in

ohio or whether the presidential race nationally. >> senator, you to look in the camera and answer me directly. will barack obama and sherrod brown will ohio? >> yeah, i think we both will. so goes ohio, so goes the nation. and president obama is doing well here because he makes a distinction. are you for the middle class or are you for helping the 47% and hoping it trickles down. and the voters don't think that way. the voters ultimately dwont look at conservative/liberal, they look at who is on your side and it's pretty clear in the race for the senate and ohio, that's why so many people are coming up to sherrod brown.com and signing up to help us and it's pretty clear with the presidential race. p. >> no republican ever won without winning ohio. senator share read brown, thanks for your time tonight. >> my pleasure. thanks reverend al. still ahead, save big bird. he's now working for food. he's on the unemployment line.

so what is with governor romney's obsession with firing big bird? plus, folks, we are putting up the facts that mitt romney misrepresented about his plans. they're on our facebook page. please go there. check it out. facts do matter. ♪ [ male announcer ] how do you make 70,000 trades a second... ♪ reach one customer at a time? ♪ or help doctors turn billions of bytes of shared information... ♪ into a fifth anniversary of remission? ♪

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first he went after 47% of the country. but now mitt romney is really playing ugly. he wants to take down big bird. ouch. that fowl story is next. home of the brave. ♪ it's where fear goes unwelcomed... ♪ and certain men... find a way to rise above. this is the land of giants. ♪ guts. glory. ram. starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors.

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big bird holding a sign will work for food. and big bird on an old time unemployment line. here he is as part of the 47%. and the count assuring big bird romney's math doesn't add up. and the sesame street gang warning romney you diss big bird, you diss all of us. sure it's childish and funny, but it's serious, too. his big plan to cut the deficit is it fire big bird? what did big bird ever do to you? tax cuts for big oil? no problem. trillions for defense, go right ahead. but big bird has to go is this get the bird who teaches our kids out of here? the president responded today.

>> last night governor romney ruled out raising a dime of taxes on anybody ever no matter how much money they make, he ruled out closing the loophole that gives oil companies $4 billion in corporate welfare. and when he was asked what he'd actually do to cut the deficit, and reduce spending, he said he'd eliminate funding for public television. we didn't know that big bird was driving the federal deficit. but that's what we heard last night. the fact is governor romney's math just doesn't add up. >> the math doesn't add up? umm. maybe mr. romney needs a little sesame street. joining me now is david corn, washington bureau chief for mother jones, and an msnbc political analyst, and michelle cottle, washington correspondent for "daily beast." thank you both for joining me.

michelle, mitt romney doesn't like to give specifics, but when it comes to big bird, no problem. >> well, no problem except it was one of the few memorable moments of the debates and everybody jumped on it and you have all of these big bird jokes making the rounds which can get people thinking. so what else is he going to cut? he's been very, very careful not to get into specifics. and let's face it, you know, firing big bird's not going to close the gaps in the numbers that he's talking about. his budget will call for cuts in lots of other very serious programs and you tonight want people to start thinking about the specifics because while the idea of cutting government always appeals, when you start talking about programs that people like, they start to get really twitchy. >> that may be why he won't get specific, but i will. mr. corn, let's go to you. the federal subsidy for pbs in 2012 doesn't make up a huge part

of this deficit. for example, 2012, the federal subsidy for pbs was $444 million. if you compare that to romney's plan for the federal budget, you'll see how miniscule it is. pbs subsidy, $444 million. but if you look at the tax breaks to oil and gas companies that romney defended last night, those add up to $4 billion this year alone. and take a look at mitt romney's plan for the defense budget. he wants to increase spending by $2 trillion over the next ten years. so, i mean, big bird is a big diversion to what he's really talking about in terms of the deficit. >> well, i think those of us out here crave specifics from governor romney. and when he's talked about this in the past, he's often thrown big bird under the bus. i don't know what would happen if he threw big bird under the

bass. maybe the bus would go off the road. but never the let's, he has this little set piece he does. do you want to know what i'll cut? i'll cut pbs and big bird, the national endowment of humanities and the amtrak subsidy. you add that all up, those are the only specifics we've gotten out of him during this campaign about budget cuts, and you get $2 million mainly because the amtrak subsidy 1.4. so that's what you get, $2 billion when he's talking about a $5 trillion tax break for the wealthy. so we're about 1/10 of 1% of what he wants tos to do here. and the president i think missed his opportunity last night to try to pin him down on this as well as the tax deductions and we talked about that earlier with robert slum. but people have to look at the math. >> the president came back today

because this is really about fairness and priorities. >> country doesn't succeed when we only see the rich getting richer, with you succeed when the middle class gets bigger. we grow our economy not from the top down, but from the middle out. we don't believe that anybody's entitled to success in this country but we do believe in something called opportunity. we believe in a country where hard work pays off and where responsibility is rewarded and everybody is getting a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share and everybody plays by the same rules. that's the country we believe in. here in america, we believe we're all in this together. we understand america's not about what can be done for us, it's about what can be done by us together as one nation and as one people. you understand that. >> michelle, did romney inadvertently leave an opening for the president by committing

himself to some of the things that he really has not represented and really represented the other side, and by saying some things last night the hard right really doesn't agree with? >> well, it was a different romney everyone's been pointing out. the people i was watching the debate with were screaming at the screen. and i'm not talking about liberal obama supporters. just about the inconsistencieses that romney was talking about. his claiming he would never consider tax cuts for the upper brackets. things like this that i think people are going to smack him for his lack of consistency and everybody's going to be talking about, you know, where did this romney come from p abo. and it has to make his base a little nervous, although i'm sure he did it with a wink wink. at this point he's done so much to assure them that he's on their team including picking paul ryan that i'm not sure they're that concerned about help anymore. but if obama is smart, he'll take this smack up side the head to get fired up again and go out

there and start reminding people, which he should have done last night, about kind of what romney's been campaigning on for the previous 18 months. >> let's take what michelle just said, david. ryan. he's got to face joe biden next week. with all of the things that the new minted mitt romney said last night, joe biden who is a very feisty debater brings to ryan. doesn't ryan have a problem in the debate next week agreeing with some of the things that the new mitt romney came with last night? >> well, you know, we all yearn for good presidentivice preside debate, but the truth is they really don't matter if the quaylquayle-benson didn' matter, this won won't. >> we don't know if they don't

matter. >> sarah palin, people watched it the way you watch a nascar race with a fascination that there may be an accident or a wreck. but with the debate coming up, there is this tension on the ticket, republican ticket, between paul ryan who campaigns and gave the speech remember at the convention, there was archly ideological about creating a new world that the president has described at darwinian and pessimistic and dark. and he gives joe biden a lot of lines of attack on the ryan budget, the medicare plan and all those things. the one thing that ryan has done for the last two years has been very, very, did i say very, very specific about all these things. so he can't do the peer wets the way mitt romney did, but i think what joe biden's task is going to be is to bo right past ryan and to usewets the way mitt romney did, but i think what joe biden's task is going to be is to bo right past ryan and to use this occasion to go after the guy he's running with. people don't care that much about ryan, only that he's a

stand-in -- >> that's my point, he'll have a hard time defending some of the things mr. romney said last night. guess what, we'll be watching. david and michelle, thanks for your time tonight. and if you liked those big bird photo, head over to our facebook page. we have them all posted there and the facts of romney's wrong priorities. coming up -- disrespect against president obama. a top romney surrogate calls the president of the united states lazy. it's time for leadership. and a criminal probe launched against republicans committing voter fraud. big story out of florida tonight. stay with us. many of my patients still clean their dentures with toothpaste. but they have to use special care in keeping the denture clean. dentures are very different to real teeth.

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we're back with the romney team going ugly. romney's campaign co-chair former new hampshire governor john sununu describing president obama's debate performance today. >> he has been lazy and disengaged and has no idea, not only of his own policies, but

has no idea what mitt romney's real policies are. p. >> you don't think there will be a better prepared president obama on stage next week? >> when you're not that bright, you can't get better prepared. >> lazy. not that bright. this is the president of the united states he's talking about. he was pressed about .comment. >> did you really need to call the president of the united states lazy? >> yes. i think you saw him admit it the night before when he delivered the pizzas. he said, you know, they're making me do this work. he didn't want to prepare for this debate. he's lazy and disengaged. >> now, we've seen this disrespect right from day one. it cannot be tolerated. mitt romney must denounce a n sununu's ugly talk. joining me now, opinion writer from the "washington post," and

victoria defrancesco, a fellow at the university of texas and an msnbc contributor. thanks both of you for being here tonight. jonathan, calling the president lazy. how does governor romney allow this to be said on his behalf? >> he just allows to be said. this isn't the first time governor sununu has said impertinent things about the president. remember a few months back, he said that the president didn't know what it meant to be an american, questioning the president's americanist, which ties into the whole birther conspiracy, racist conspiracy lie about the president that somehow he was not born in this country and, therefore, is occupying illegally the oval office as president of the united states. and yet there was nothing out of the romney campaign or from the candidate himself denouncing what this sort of cranky uncle of the republican party had to

say. but john sununu isn't the only person in the republican party saying impertinent things, disrespectful things about the president and yet no one of any stature in the republican party has had the guts to stand up and say enough of this. >> that's my point, victoria. you've got sununu said he failed to maintain respect for the united states. this is sununu about the president. and then july, i wish this president would learn how to be an american. july again, he says he spent his early days in hawaii smoking something. romney nor any prominent republican has denounced this. you've got the birthers, you've got joe wilson and the media has not pressed romney on whether or not he condones or condemns these kind of statements. >> these petty and personal remarks sadly are not

uncharacteristic of john sununu. he has taken up the mantle as a proceed vok tur. but strategy wise, i think this will backfire for the romney camp. coming off of the win that he had last night, what he ideally wants is a focused message and disciplined surrogates. he doesn't want a side show. what's going to happen is those independent voters, those more moderate voters that romney so desperately needs in the swing states of ohio, of pennsylvania, are going to hear these ugly comments and they're going to walk away from him. they don't like the substance and then you add on the style and it's just going to further alienate. >> jonathan, there's also policy. mitt romney's welfare ad claims the president dropped work requirements from welfare. let me splay you t play you the. >> president obama quietly announced a plan for gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. under obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job.

they just send you your welfare check. and welfare to work goes back to being plain old welfare. >> fact checkers have completely debunked the claim, but romney stands by it. but also, doesn't this also play into the stereotypes welfare for no work, lazy? i mean, soon we'll hear lazy and shiftless, i guess. isn't this all the same kind of things implied? >> oh, absolutely. and even after the fact checkers came back and said, hey, governor romney, you and your campaign are running a blatantly false ad, they're still running it. and it's all part of this continuing effort on the romney campaign's part to excite a base that up until last night wasn't terribly excited about its nominee. and the fact that mitt romney is still playing to his base and rather reactionary sliver of his

base, you know, at this late date meaning during the general election doesn't say very much about his campaign, doesn't say very much about his chances quite frankly. >> and go back to what i said before, victoria. the media is not pressing romney on it. i mean, they'll go on the right and get five-year-old tapes that everyone already heard and try to make something out of something the president said. here you have new things being said weekly, almost daily, and no one is saying mr. romney, how do you deal with the statements of your sewer rourrogates and w you're saying in your own ads. >> i'm so puzzled by the ad because on the one hand you have the republicans saying they want more states' rights, that they want their states to be lavatories of innovation, that they want more liberty. so the president is giving them that liberty. here, you can work with this. last night we saw governor romney talk extensively about

how he has had the liberty at the state level to work with education and health care, but when it comes to welfare, they reject that. and also last night, you made an excellent point by saying, you know, states' rights also entail an ugly underbelly to it, which is the curtailment of individual rights for females, for immigrants and for poor folks. so they want to have their cake and eat it, too. >> thank you for saying that because states' rights is the justification that has been used on every fight for civil rights, women rights, states' rights is really, really apthreat cal to both. the national government has had to protect a lot of citizens against states' rights and for him to go unchallenged on that war was unthinkable. thanks for your time tonight. a criminal probe launched against republicans committing voter fraud. big story. that's next.

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finally tonight, a criminal investigation is under way in florida. the florida department of law enforcement is probing a republican voter registration firm that was hired by the republican national committee. we reported about strategic allied consulting. the firm's accused of registering dead people as gop voters on submitting renlg strakss with fake addresses, and of having similar looking signatures on voter forms. the firm's run by my than sproel. in the past, he's been investigated for tricking democrats in to registering for republicans, secretly reregistering democrats as republicans and shredding democratic registration forms. he's never been charged or convicted. but knowing this, the rnc sll

hired him to run voter registration. and day after day, we're learning about about gop voter fraud. today a newly uncovered video shows the gop voting challenges on illegal tactics. it was recorded last week showing a tea party leader giving misleading information about voting rights. >> what happens if we get people in there who are part of what the media's calling the purge? >>provisional. >> not true. with a provisional ballot, there's a chance a vote won't count. and last week a woman was caught on camera registering only republican voters. she worked for nathan sproul's group. we have to keep our eye on the ball. the integrity of the voting process matters. which is why last night